jemadar
Americannoun
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any of various government officials.
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the supervisor of a staff of servants.
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an officer in a sepoy regiment, corresponding in rank to a lieutenant.
noun
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a native junior officer belonging to a locally raised regiment serving as mercenaries in India, esp with the British Army (until 1947)
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an officer in the Indian police
Etymology
Origin of jemadar
1755–65; < Urdu jamadar, variant of jamdar < Persian < Arabic jamʿ aggregation + Persian dār holding, leader of
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A few days before all this, I was standing about in the bazaar, when I met a jemadar.
From Strange Stories by Grant Allen
“Get the men together, Akhab Khan,” he said to the jemadar.
From The Red Year A Story of the Indian Mutiny by Louis Tracy
The Thugs of each district were led by one whom they called their jemadar, to whom they gave implicit obedience.
From Modern Saints and Seers by Evan Marrett
The head jemadar then came to make a bargain, and we said we would give to each man five dollars a-month, besides rations and clothing the same as Bombay got.
From What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile by John Hanning Speke
We took with us only our servant Matthaios, the Greek, Musaben, an elderly man from the Aden troup, as jemadar or manager of the soldiers and go-between generally; and three or four soldiers.
From Southern Arabia by Theodore Bent
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
